SMITH, Adam.

Essays on Philosophical Subjects.

To which is prefixed, an Account of the Life and Writings of the Author; by Dugald Stewart.

Stock Code

97848

London & Edinburgh, T. Cadell Jun. & W. Davies, & W. Creech, 1795

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First edition, published five years after Smith's death, edited by Dugald Stewart with his Account of the life and writings of Adam Smith, originally presented to the Royal Society of Edinburgh in two sessions during 1793. The editor states that the essays were intended as parts of 'a connected history of the liberal sciences and elegant arts' but that Smith 'long since … found it necessary to abandon that plan as far too extensive'. The essays range over philosophy, aesthetics and the history of science. Most were probably written before the appearance of the Theory of Moral Sentiments in 1759 but were withheld from publication as part of Smith's 'extensive plan'.

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Description

First edition, 4to (276 x 224 mm); contemporary marbled calf, rebacked to style with red morocco label, endpapers renewed. housed in a custom dark red cloth flat-back box, bookplate of the banker Thomas Coutts, 'Strand, London' to front pastedown, extremities worn, a couple of small nicks to boards, the very occasional faint mark or spot to contents, tiny nick to top edge of K4, else a notably bright, clean copy.